Dodgers prioritize bigger picture in ugly loss to Athletics

WEST SACRAMENTO –– Thanks to their MLB-best record and all-but-insurmountable 12 ½ game lead in the National League West, the Dodgers have some luxuries with how they navigate the rest of this regular season.Exhibit A came on Wednesday, when they went with a pitching plan never likely to work.After pushing back Shohei Ohtani’s originally scheduled start a couple of days to give the two-way star an extended break on the mound, the Dodgers rolled out a bullpen game against the Athletics that transformed into a sacrificial bulk-relief outing from triple-A call-up Charlie Barnes.Not familiar with that name? Don’t worry, manager Dave Roberts wasn’t really either.“You know,” Roberts said when asked what he knew about Barnes, a 30-year-old left-hander who was claimed off waiver earlier this year and had made only 13 career MLB appearances before Wednesday, “honestly not much.”That’s OK.Barnes was bad in his seven-inning, 94-pitch appearance, giving up seven runs to send the Dodgers –– who were also playing without Mookie Betts after he was scratched pregame with a wrist injury –– to a 7-1 defeat to the Athletics, denying them a chance for a three-game series sweep.But with where the club is at right now, such concessions don’t come with much cost.The Dodgers, after all, are already steamrolling toward October.They have a 99.9% chance of winning the NL West, according to Fangraphs’ computer models.

And if they have the chance to give star players like Ohtani some extra rest, they’re more than capable of taking advantage of it.A random Wednesday night game at a triple-A park in Sacramento be damned.That didn’t mean the team’s loss, which snapped a four-game winning streak, wasn’t ugly.They left the bases loaded in the first, stranded two more men in the second, then left Barnes on the mound to wear it as the Athletics knocked him around for two runs in the fourth, three more in the fifth and one last indignity in the eighth.Then aga...